Hi all,
I need some help finding some splits that have good reputation for smooth sound and clear midbass (while not being too bright), I am sick of my current splits and ned something better.

Currently running an old set of Alpine SCS-1755 6.5" splits with a DDS-R13A DDDrive crossover to help it out. These are running off my V12 MRV-T501 getting [email="75wRMS@12v"]75wRMS@12v[/email] per side. My budget is around $500.00 ish, perhaps more if its worth it.

I have auditioned what I can find so far in Perth, and to be honest I am hoping there are a lot more better splits out there because the current selection is pretty dismal. Now I know you'll all say I should "shop around" or "have a listen" etc, and I know its a personal thing, but I am sure with the following statements you can gather what I am looking for;

- Focal Polyglass, Access, etc - far too harsh and bright
- Alpine S/R/X also a bit bright, and somewhat lacking mid-bass
- JL VR/XR etc, didn't actually mind these
- MB Quart Discus or Reference series - not too bad either

Thats it so far... I have been told to check some Diamonds, Hertz, Dynaudios, etc but I just can't find a demo board with these, or have no idea about names/models etc.

Would appreciate any feedback.

These will be installed in my VR doors stock location (using sails as tweeter mounts) Dynamatted and awaiting custom pods. Amp will be as above.

Thanks all.

Go for Dynaudio 240! no mistake. Or a/d/s 3 series 2 way split. Both of this gave a smooth sound and clear midbass and lots of it. But your amp and barget is a litter under power.

yea the dyns are nice, may i add a suggestion of rainbows and dls

dyns (240mk2 & 240gt) are available at alberts morley and audioart (also stock a/d/s and dls)
rainbows (cmx, sound line and profi), diamonds m6, dls ms6 at sound xplosive
hertz hsk 1600, rainbows (as above), dyns at technik

the above are dealers but i know that alberts morley and audioart have the dyns 240 series on their boards, sounds xplosive have the cmx and the profi on the boards while at techniks i'm not sure what they have right now
the models are within your price range errr give or take within 300 of your budget...apart from the dyns which are 999 rrp

i got the rainbows profi cs 265 kick in my car right now, on the boards they don't sound that flash but once in a car mmmmmmm

Cheers for the feedback I will give these guys a call tomorrow.

I realise that my amp/budget is not going to produce comp level SQ - and with that I understand Utopias, Dyns etc are out of my league.... so I am looking for something good... just not THAT good lol.

Umm, check in my thread "punchy splits" almost the exact same question...

Why not go with 8inchers?

If your going with custom pods then 8's are the best way to go. I fit my 8inch drivers in my old VN and still had manual window winders.

Hertz allow you to "upgrade" the drivers of there splits.

The hertz 3way splits, use a 6.5inch 4inch and tweeter. You can upgrade the 6.5inch to the 8inch and it will cost you just on $500. Or you could keep the 6.5inch as it has more midbass than the 2way model as the 3ways use a different woofer.

Alpine X types that lack midbass....?

Hmmm ~puzzled~

To save space I put all the Alpines on one line... X-types are fine in the mid side of things, but still too bright for my liking - and also crave more power than amp/wallet can afford at this time.

You can see from my sig that I like Alpine - but I really hate the sound of their speakers.

Q: Why are Hertz so cheap? Like ... the top HSK 6.5" split set is within my budget... the fact they don't make whoop-ass expensive gear (or that I can find/buy anyway) worries me a little. Now this may be a little shallow on my part - but still... they are reaaaaaallllly cheap.

List of recommendations for auditions is getting longer, check it out below... did I miss anything worth checking out?

Cliff Design CD6.5C
Hertz HSK 165
Orion C6.2
Directed Audio CSX650
MB Quart Discus PCE/RCE/DSE-216
Focal Access/Polyglass/K2Power 165
A/D/S 246ix
CDT HD Series HD-642
Rainbow Profi/Kick CS-265
JL Audio VR/XR 650CSi/CXi
Alpine X Series
Boston Acoustic Pro60 (whats the replacement for the Rally these days?)
Morel "Ovation Hybrid"/Pulse 6

Unfortunately a LOT of these are faily well over my budget, and waaaaay exceed the power rating of my amplifier iw: Morel

i'd probably go with the A/D/S from that list. they sound nice, and they're a bit different
Hertz make better splits that the HSK165s, wasn't there also a "something"1600 with a 7' midbass driver?

Entry level Rainbow splits are only about $550 from memory.
I know you live near the Burswood area, try Sounds Xplosive Audio out, they have some set up that you can demo.

Going to Sounds Xplosive and A&T for demos. Gonna check out the Hertz, Rainbow, Orion and a/d/s splits. As for the hertz gear... I don't know their website so looked for Aus Audio retailers, and FHRX has a set of Hertz HSK 163 (165mm Three Way Splits with Grills) for $539.00 - thats the top ones they have, and I can find.

I found the type-x tweeters to be a lil' dull to be honest, but the ones I listened to were on a demo board, my old F1 tweeters were great, would have prefered them to be a touch brighter naturally, but nothing a bit of tweaking didn't fix.

I'm interested in how yu go with the MB's, I was a big fan of them going way back, wonder if things have changed much.

u could also look at a pair of VDO HPC1700's. max power rating is 300w, nom is ~150wrms...have a pair myself sitting at home waiting to be installed....extremely nice sound and within ur budget (about $400-$450 i think)
also, there arent a great deal of people that have these speakers outside of people invoved in SQ

Wow... never even thought about VDO... usually think any sentance including "VDO" and "extremely nice" a bit of sarcasm - but will add them to my list to audition I guess.

hertz website
http://www.hertzaudiovideo.com/eng/index.htm

the hertz speakers that mr bob was talking about were the hsk1600 should retail at rrp 675
but i think they should be 6.5 inches not 7 inches

hey mate

how bout upgrading the amp to something that has around 150+wrms and try the speakers u currently have on that sort of power.
i had the mb quart discus and used to run 50wrms into them. then i decided i would put in 200wrms for ****s n giggles. The giggles soon stopped and WOW the difference in midbass was crazy. It was like a whole new speaker.
Maybe try that approach first?
Sometimes it makes me think that i shouldnt of changed to my dyns, but i'm sure i made the rite choice (havent put em in cause my cars broken down atm).

i'm sure u'll find the rite set of speakers for u. Have fun

Hmm, after stoooopid amounts of time reading stuff I have determined that even with my current set of splits, I really really require a 7" or 8" mid-bass driver and a three way crossover to fill the midbass gap. Reading up more and more on the 2" gap concept, running 6.5" and 12" subs is most likely I am left with hollow bits and a lack of mid bass (not to mentioned the crazy staging benefits this will get me with more mid up front)... this scares me though as...

a) I will need to find/buy/build a three way crossover.
B) Theres no way I want to run an 8" or so in my doors as its terrible dynamatted running a 6.5"
c) my PCM/memcal is sitting right behind the passenger side kick... and I am not keen on running an 8" that close to the brains of my car.

Soo... I am now expanding my search for three way crossovers, good mid-bass drivers, and location to mount the gear. ie: Custom three-way passive 12dB crossover running Alpine gear with Orion XTR8MB 8" mid-bass in custom kicks... or perhaps the following;

$239.00 - Hertz HV200L 8" Mid-bass Driver
$121.00 - Hertz 3W.20 Three Way Crossover (Dual 6.5" or 8" Woofer)
TOTAL = $360.00 - Using Alpine SCS-1755 6.5" mid and tweeter to complete three-way

... in the above though, I fear I will struggle with amp power doing this..... Sooooo

I guess I could swap my second Eclipse SW-7124 for something like an Hertz HV200L and use my second T505 (2x78wRMS @ 12v) to run just the 8" and leave my current splits as they are.

And to answer SlimLim - no I can't upgrade to another amplifier - I am going for a nice looking install, and all my gear is the silver/blue '97 Alpine series.... so in keeping with that theme that leaves me to track down an MRV-T1505 or similar - which are getting scary hard to find.... I would gladly sell my T501 to get a 1505 or similar.

Thanks for the input already people. A bit more advice and I am set for a loooong saturday of speaker hunting etc.

EDIT: By the way, I guess I should try my current splits anyway, last time I heard them they were running from an older Alpine source unit with a 2v pre-out and filtered by an old Alpine 3342 11-band parametric which was badly ageing.... but I am still in dire need of more mid and stage correction up front.

I had 8MB's in my first SQ system, I loved them, even to the extent where I could be happy to have the sub off or set really low for general listening.

Went with a cruise with my good mate and he kept telling me to turn the bass off (soft), I had no subs in the car at the time of #2 rebuild - I just laughed at him, big baby scared of some 8's....

you don't need 8" drivers with 12's.
6.5's are fine
of course there's no problem using 8's, but it's not necessary.

just realised that to run an 8" I first have to add another 500 bucks as I currently have manual windows and would need a conversion. So I am once again looking smaller. Standouts are the DD W6.5 for a 6.5" alternative, an a Focal 13K 5" subwoofer or two. Both have rated RMS handling of between 100 and down to 80 respectively. Not sure how they sound though as no stores here have demos etc.

Anyone had experience running mids/small subs up front. Remembering also I have to do a tardis job and make two speakers fit into a small space. I have even investigated moving the PCM etc so I can use the kicks... but thats just too hard and expensive for the time being.

Sounds Xplosive will have our 6.5s in stock on Monday, they ordered four last week.

As I've said before, I've run door mounted DDW 6.5s with over 600Wrms each. I've never heard (or felt) a 6" like them.

I've built cars with 9" Dyns in enlcosures in the front floor (1 Civic, 1 Integra) neither of them compare to cars I've done with DD 6s in the door.

Phil

funny you should say that... spoke to them today and they helped with with a complete system re-work using my current amps etc.

System will look like teh following (eventually)

- Rainbow Profi Kick 4" 2-way set, tweets in pillar and 4" in kicks (relocating the PCM etc), DDDrive rears high passed to like 400Hz - both sets running off my F405 (50wRMS)
- DDW6.5s in the doors - each side getting a dedicated T505 @ 320+wRMS
- A single Eclipse SW-7124 in the boot (custom enclosure) running off the T501
- Sell my bass engines

Apparently that should get me around 140dB while being focused primarilly on SQ.... all good I tell you. I was initially worried about the 50w driving the fronts... but apparently the sensitivity on the Rainbow 4"s means 50w should be ample.... which should sound sweet.

I'll know more later this week when I go in for a DD6.5 audition.... and... I can't believe this setup... all dual battery and stuff, is going to be awesome.

so, you can get all front speakers for under $500?

lol... hell no... 80% of that list is above 700 bucks. While I'd like to sto the 500-ish as possible, it appears that it just isn't possible.
Rainbow Profi - waiting on quote - expected about $600-$700
DDW6.5 - waiting on final offer, but should be around $295 EACH.

I spose if I buy ospeaker at a time I can get it under 500

BTW: The dude I was going to get a MRV-T502 from (for my system mentioned above) has already sold it... so if you have a nice 2 or 4 chan amplifier, particularly an old 1997 range Alpine V12... let me know.

Better splits will no doubt sound better, but if you just want a more prominent midbass consider doing a good deadening ... assuming ofcourse u havnt already. You'll be amazed how much difference it makes!

Cheers